Keeping Up with CHatGPT in Education

Peter Paccone
8 min readJan 21, 2023

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A Weekly Article Digest

Hello everybody and welcome to my weekly blog post on the topic of CHatGPT in education.

As a social studies teacher at San Marino High School, I have been keenly interested in the potential of ChatGPT to revolutionize education and so, every Saturday morning since the November 30, 2022 launching of CHatGPT, I have been conducting a thorough search of the internet for the latest research, articles, youtube videos, and developments on the topic.

I have then taken the most relevant and informative pieces I’ve found and compiled the list appearing below, with the most recent “pieces” appearing first.

I will continue to update this list every Saturday until the end of the school year, so please check back regularly for the latest.

My aim is not only to continue to educate myself on the topic but also to provide you with a weekly update on what I view as “the best and the most recent.”

If you come across some article, video, or resource on the topic of ChatGPT in education that you would like to see added to my list, please don’t hesitate to send it my way at ppaccone@smusd.us. In all likelihood, I’ll add it.

Whether you love or hate . . . ChatGPT, the technology is officially out in the wild (and since it isn’t going to go away), you might as well learn how to use it, if only to get a head start on others. The future belongs to those who build proficiency with using ChatGPT and systems like it.

As of March 7, 2023

  • Fifty-one% of the teachers said they use ChatGPT for school (which is way lower than the teachers I know).
  • Fifty-nine percent agreed that “ChatGPT will likely have legitimate educational uses that we cannot ignore,” while just 24% agreed that “ChatGPT will likely only be useful for students to cheat.” (That’s close to what I’m seeing)
  • Seventy-three percent said the use of CHatGPT can help their students learn more (also seems about right, for now).

According to a survey — commissioned by the Walton Family Foundation — asking 1000 K-12 teachers what they thought about CHatGPT

Teachers, clearly, are warming up to CHatGPT!

As of March 7, 2023

As we enter the era of ChatGPT, the role of high school social studies teachers, particularly those teaching US and world history, will change significantly.

One of the bigger changes that I envision is the one that more often calls on students to create content that links to the historical concepts they need to learn. This could include writing a scene for a movie, a chapter for a book, a letter, a diary entry, a poem or speech, or some lyrics to a song using ChatGPT technology (with parental permission).

Once the content has been created, students should be able to verbally describe it in one to two minutes. For assessment, teachers should ask students to answer a number of logically-anticipated follow-up questions, either verbally or in writing, which should be designed to reveal whether the student really understands the work they have produced and the historical concepts related to the topic. These assessments should be graded to ensure students are mastering the material.

By incorporating ChatGPT technology into their teaching, social studies teachers can empower their students to engage more deeply with historical concepts and encourage creative thinking. This approach can foster a deeper understanding of history and its relevance to our lives today.

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Peter Paccone

San Marino High School social studies teacher. Also the Community Outreach Manager for Class Companion and a member of the CB's AI in AP Advisory Committee.